Dakota Marshal

Dr. Lang called her a soft touch. Joan used a less flattering term, but one look into the dog’s big brown eyes and Alessandra had caved.

Since an umbrella was pointless, she made her way across the pitted parking lot. She’d almost reached her car when a hand clamped onto her arm and swung her around in a rough half circle.

A fork of lightning illuminated the surly face of the calf breeder. He was big, bald and built like a bulldog. His eyes were flinty and he had no neck. The fingers that dug into her skin like talons tightened when she tried to shake him off.

Fear tickled her throat. Swallowing it, she met his glare. “Let go, Hawley.”

“You set the law on me.”

“I talked to the sheriff.”

Lightning flashed again. His lips thinned. “You told him I threatened you.”

“You did.”

“I called you up, told you you’d pay for what you’d done. And, by God, you will.” He took a menacing step closer, sank his fingers in deeper. “You don’t know squat about farm animals. Hell, you couldn’t wrestle a colt from its mama’s belly if your life depended on it.”

She wouldn’t back down, would not give him the satisfaction of reacting to the vicious gleam in his eyes. “I think I could probably do a lot of things under those circumstances.”

His scowl became a sneer, and he yanked her toward him.

“You talk a good game, Dr. Norris, but deep down I reckon you’re really a spineless little city girl who should have stayed in Chicago.” Another jerk, another fruitless attempt to free herself. Fear didn’t so much tickle now as grip her insides.

He bared his teeth in a leer. “Maybe I can think of a fair payment, after all.”

She caught the whisper of movement in her peripheral vision while she was lining up a determined left to his barely visible Adam’s apple. A hand descended on her shoulder, and a voice emerged from the darkness next to her.

“I think that’s enough manhandling for one night, pal.”

Shock kept Alessandra’s fist balled as she snapped her head around to regard the profile of none other than Gabriel McBride.

His expression remained amiable, but the hand that reached out to yank the breeder’s startled fingers away did so with no small amount of force.

Alessandra felt rather than saw Frank Hawley’s sputtering outrage.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Who’s not important. What is…” McBride’s slight movement had the breeder sliding his eyes downward. Lightning illuminated both the Glock and the badge at the waistband of McBride’s jeans.

“You’re a cop?”

“Close enough to haul you in for attempting to harm the lady beside me.”

“That lady’s a killer,” Hawley spat.

“Makes two of us. You’ve got five seconds to disappear. On six, you’re coming with me.”

Hawley showed his teeth again, this time in a snarl. He raised a finger, started to jab it, then curled it back and swung away.

McBride watched and waited through the next thunderbolt before asking, “What the hell did you do to the guy, Alessandra?”

She pushed his arm away. “Nothing. Let go of me.”

“You’re welcome.”

Sighing, she sidestepped him. “Thank you. Now, will you please tell me what you’re doing in South Dakota?”

The smallest of smiles touched his mouth. “Got a bit of a problem, darlin’.”

He took one step back and, before she could reach for him, dropped like a stone to the rain-soaked ground.

Chapter Two

“No hospitals, Alessandra. No cops. Say it.”

McBride was hanging on to consciousness by a fine thread. Experience told Alessandra that thread wouldn’t be allowed to snap until she made the required promise.

He held and shook her wrist. “I need you to say it.”

There was no decision, really. If she didn’t agree, he wouldn’t let her help him. If she didn’t help him, he’d die.

“Yes, all right, no cops.”

“Or hospitals.”

“I heard you, McBride.” She attempted to lever him up. “I can’t carry you, though. You’ll have to help me.”

Alessandra used all her strength to get him to his feet and into the clinic—and all her will not to go against her word. He’d been a cop once. Now he was hiding from them. Every shred of common sense she possessed told her to do what was necessary, then walk away. She also knew she wouldn’t listen to it. She never did.

And so the nightmare would begin.

HE DIDN’T KNOW where he was because everything had gone black and weird. He felt like he was being dragged over a wet, rocky mountain. Water splashed onto his face, and the whole left side of his body felt numb. Until he took a wrong turn and ran straight into a red-hot knife.

He heard Alessandra’s voice. It sounded far away. She wanted him to help her.

Help her with what?

The darkness was split by twin headlights on a twilight road.

The pavement was old, chewed up. The guardrail, where it existed, tilted into the canyon below.

He thought he was driving south, but direction didn’t matter, because suddenly there was a sea of lights, red and flashing. He braked behind one of several ambulances.

A biker watched from the sidelines. “Bus went through the guardrail,” he said, pointing. “Took the turn too sharp and started to roll.”

Now McBride heard screams and saw people, wild-eyed and bleeding, as rescue workers assisted or carried them out of the canyon.

One of them, a man with a heavy accent, was hysterical. A woman sitting close to him had been impaled by a long piece of glass. He’d never seen anyone die before.